Prostate cancer is one of the hardest cancers for the immune system to see. We break the tumor open through a needle, usually with electrical pulses, and inject immunotherapy into the same spot to change that at the tumor. For prostate cancer that keeps growing after hormone therapy and everything since.
Complete a short, three-step form to begin your admissions process. One of our patient consultants will contact you to explain the process and guide you through the next steps.
IV (drip) immunotherapy has failed in most prostate cancer. The tumor shows the immune system little, and the tissue around it, especially bone, holds immune cells back. Instead, a needle breaks the tumor open, usually with electrical pulses, and injects immune drugs into it. It works alongside your current treatment, not in place of it.
The immune drugs placed in the tumor teach the immune system to recognize this cancer, the way a vaccine does. You teach the immune system in one spot, and it goes after the same cancer in the rest of the body.
The treated tumor is the source of the vaccine, and it keeps supplying it. It is not one exposure and done. Every round of tumor cells the immune system destroys exposes new antigens, and those restart the cycle, so the response keeps spreading: broader, throughout the body, and with memory. It turns a “cold” tumor, one the immune system ignores, “hot”.
Card 06 leads back to card 02. Doctors call the widening response epitope spreading.
The prostate sits against the rectum, the urethra and the nerves that control erection. Electrical pulses let us treat there without heat; freezing has also been used in the prostate for decades. About an hour; most people go home the same day.
Prostate tumors carry few of the markers immune drugs rely on, and bone spread sits in tissue that suppresses immune cells. Breaking the tumor open exposes what it has. The drugs we inject supply the alarm signals it lacks.
About an hour under image guidance, and most people go home the same day, about two hours later.
Once the immune system has been alerted at one tumor and kept re-primed by the cycle above, it acts on spread in bone or elsewhere that was never treated, and it remembers it.
Standard care. Localized high-risk disease: radical prostatectomy, or radiation with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC): an androgen-receptor pathway inhibitor, then a taxane, a PARP inhibitor for HRR-mutant disease, lutetium-177 PSMA (Pluvicto), and sipuleucel-T (Provenge) in selected patients. Sipuleucel-T is the only FDA-approved active cellular immunotherapy for prostate cancer. Intravenous (IV) checkpoint blockade is largely ineffective in unselected prostate cancer. Cryoablation is used for selected localized disease.
Ablation alone. Local control only, with no expected effect on untreated sites.
This approach. Non-thermal pulsed electric field (PEF) ablation in most cases, with cryoablation where it suits the target, with immunotherapy injected into the same site in the same session. It is offered under physician review.
Rationale. The reasoning is that prostate cancer is immunologically "cold" — low tumor mutational burden, frequent loss of MHC class I expression, and an immunosuppressive bone microenvironment where most metastases sit — so that the signals IV immunotherapy depends on are missing. Breaking the tumor open exposes what antigen it has; the injected agents supply the inflammatory and costimulatory signals the tumor lacks. In our clinical observations, treating one tumor produces immune activity at untreated bone or visceral sites.
The procedure, step by step
Agents. The injected immunotherapy is a multi-agent combination. The agents and doses are set per patient by the treating physician.
The immune conversion cycle, in clinical terms. Ablation disrupts the tumor and exposes its full antigen repertoire, not a pre-selected subset. The injected immunotherapy then remodels the tumor microenvironment, priming, recruiting and activating immune cells and releasing the brakes on them. Immune-mediated lysis exposes further antigens, which re-prime the response (epitope spreading), producing a broader, polyclonal, systemic response with memory, converting a cold tumor hot. This is WCI’s stated rationale, in Dr. Goodyear’s framing, borne out in our clinical observations.
Evidence. Intratumoral delivery concentrates drug in the injected tumor: in mice with colorectal tumors and no ablation, anti-CTLA-4 injected into a tumor reached about 14 times the day-7 level of IV dosing in that tumor, while untreated tumors received no more than with IV and half the dose reached the blood within an hour [1]. That is mouse data in a different cancer; it does not test ablation and does not show a distant-site effect. No randomized trial of ablation plus intratumoral immunotherapy in prostate cancer exists. No prostate cancer case with scans and a written record is on file yet; the prostate patient accounts on this page are patients' own words, not medical records.
Related but separate. WCI mCRPC patients who meet eligibility criteria may be evaluated for a Syncromune SYNC-T (SV-102) trial under separate informed consent. The completed phase 1 SYNC-T trial in mCRPC is NCT05544227 (sponsor Williams Cancer Foundation, collaborator Syncromune); its phase 1 results were presented at AACR 2024 [2]. Dr. Williams is a Syncromune co-founder and co-inventor of SYNC-T, and so has an interest in that product. That trial is not WCI's standard care and is not what this page describes. Sources
What has already been tried, and where the cancer is, decide where we fit. Pick the card that sounds like your diagnosis. Whether this is right for you is decided case by case, by a physician reading your actual scans, so none of these lists is a verdict. If you are unsure which card is yours, send the records.
Any of these describes you:
Each case is individually evaluated by the Williams Cancer Institute team.
After completing our admissions form, one of our Patient Consultants will contact you to explain the process and guide you through the next steps. Our admissions process is free of charge, including the review of your medical information and, if our medical team determines that you are a candidate, a video consultation. Treatments are generally not covered by health insurance, and WCI does not bill insurance companies.
One of our Patient Consultants will contact you to explain the admissions process, answer your general questions, and guide you through the next steps.
Your Patient Consultant will guide you on the required medical records and imaging studies, as well as how to submit them so our medical team can evaluate your case.
Once the necessary information has been received, our medical team will review your case to determine whether you may be a candidate for our treatments. If necessary, the medical team may request additional studies or information before making a decision.
If our medical team determines that you are a candidate, we will coordinate a complimentary Zoom consultation with one of our physicians. During this consultation, you will be able to discuss your case, address your medical questions, and learn about the treatment approach indicated for you.
Following your medical consultation, you will receive a personalized treatment plan that includes the corresponding costs. If you decide to proceed, the next steps will be coordinated to schedule your treatment.
Most treatments take place in Los Cabos, Mexico; in some cases our medical team may schedule a procedure in Mexico City. Rebyota is given only at our Beverly Hills, California location.
Your physician confirms the details for your case.
Your physician goes through the risks for your case before anything is decided.
Dr. Jason Williams is a board-certified radiologist who has spent his career putting needles into tumors under imaging. His first patent, in 2003, covered ablation combined with immunotherapy injected into the tumor. A physician since 2000, he opened his first ablation center in 2004 and completed his residency in 2007. He also co-founded Syncromune, whose separate investigational drug SV-102 holds FDA Fast Track status. His tumor board reviews every case.
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Most of our treatments are performed in Los Cabos, Mexico, in a private hospital setting.
Other treatment locations. In some cases our medical team may schedule a procedure in Mexico City. Rebyota is given only at our Beverly Hills, California location.
Accounts Williams Cancer Institute publishes, shared with each patient's permission. They span different cancers. Individual results vary and are not guaranteed.
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Read the full account →Complete our admissions form to get started. One of our Patient Consultants will contact you to explain the process and guide you through the next steps, including the medical information and imaging studies required for our medical team to evaluate your case.
